The Campfire Girls of Roselawn Part 30

"Provided," added Amy, "that the poor are not too poor."

They finally got Henrietta to bed. She went to sleep with the silk dress hanging over a chair within reach. After Amy had gone home Jessie retired with much more worriment upon her mind than little Henrietta had upon hers.

Everybody was astir early about the Norwood and Drew places in Roselawn that next morning. At the former house Jessie and Henrietta aroused everybody. At the Drew place "two old salts," as Amy sleepily called them from her bedroom window, came rambling in from a taxi-cab and disturbed the repose of the family.

"Where did you leave that _Marigold_?" the sister demanded from her window. "You boys go off on that yacht, supposedly to stay a year, and get back in forty-eight hours. You turn up like a couple of bad pennies. You----"

"Chop it, Sis," Darry advised. "See if you can get a bite fixed for a couple of started castaways. The engine went dead on us and we sailed into Barnegat last night and all hands came home by train. Mark has the laugh on us."

Fortunately the cook was already downstairs and Amy put on a negligee and ran down to sit with the boys in the breakfast room and listen to the tale of their adventures.

"Oh! But," she said, after a while, "there's been something doing in this neighborhood, too. At least, our neighbors have been doing something. Do you know, Darry, Jess is bound to find that lost girl we were telling you about? Mr. Norwood goes into court to-day on that Ellison case, and he admits himself that he has very little chance of winning without the testimony of Bertha Blair."

"Fine name," drawled Darry. "Sounds like a movie actress."

"Let me tell you," Amy said eagerly.

She related how she and Jessie had tried to find Bertha after hearing what they believed to be the lost girl's voice out of the air. Darry and Burd listened with increasing wonder.

"What won't you kids do next?" gasped Darry.

"I wish you wouldn't call us kids. You are as bad as Belle Ringold,"

complained his sister.

"Is she hanging around here yet?" demanded Darry. "I don't want to see that girl. I know I'm going to say something unpleasant to her yet."

"She is right after you, just the same," Amy said, suddenly giggling.

She told about the coming moonlight box-party down the lake.

"We'll go right back to the _Marigold_, Burd," said Darry promptly.

"Home is no place for us. But tell us what else you did, Sis."

When Amy had finished her tale her brother was quite serious.

Particularly was he anxious to help Jessie, for he thought a good deal of his sister's chum.

"Tell you what," he said, looking at Burd, "we'll hang around long enough to ride over to the stock farm with the girls, sha'n't we?"

"What do you think you can do more than they have done?" asked Burd, with some scorn.

"I have an idea," said Darry Drew slowly. "I think it is a good one.

It even beats using that little Hen Haney for a bait. Listen here."

And he proceeded to tell them.

A RADIO TRICK

CHAPTER XXIV

A RADIO TRICK

Jessie was of course delighted to see Darry and Burd in Amy's company when her chum appeared on the Norwood premises after breakfast. Jessie had dressed Henrietta, and the child was preening herself in the sun like a peac.o.c.k. The boys scarcely recognized her.

At once Burd Alling called her the Enchanted Princess. That disturbed little Henrietta but slightly.

"I expect I am a 'chanted princess,'" she admitted gravely. "I expect I am like Cinderella. I know all about her. And the pumpkin and rats and mice was charmed, too. I hope I won't get charmed back again into my old clothes."

"You could not very well help Mrs. Foley in that dress, Henrietta,"

Jessie suggested.

"No. I suppose not. But if I could just find my cousin Bertha maybe I would not have to help Mrs. Foley any more. Maybe Bertha is rich, and we could hire somebody to take care of Billy Foley and to clean out the kitchen stove."

She was more than eager to ride along with the others to look for Bertha Blair. As it chanced, Jessie did not have to call for Chapman and the Norwood car when the time to go came. For who should drive up to the house but Mark Stratford, who had come home with Darry and Burd from the yacht cruise and had driven over from Stratfordtown in his powerful car?

It was a tight fit for the six in the racing car, but they squeezed in and drove out through the Parkville road while it was still early morning. Meanwhile Darry had explained his idea to the others, and they were all eager to view the surroundings of the Gandy stock farm.

"If Bertha is there she'll know me if I holler; of course, she will,"

agreed little Henrietta. "But she never will know me by looking at me.

Never!"

"So she'll have to shut her eyes if she wants to know you, will she, kid?" chuckled Burd.

There really did not seem to be any need for the child to call when the party stopped before the closed gate, for there was not any sign of occupancy of either the house or surrounding buildings. The s.h.i.+ngled old house offered blank windows to the road, like so many sightless eyes. There were no horses in the stables, for the windows over the box-stalls were all closed. And the tower the girls had marked before seemed deserted as well.

"Just the same, the voice spoke of the red barn and that silo and those two fallen trees there. Chapman says the trees must have fallen lately. And yet there isn't an aerial in sight, as we told you," said Jessie.

"Let's look around," Darry said, jumping out, and Burd and Amy went with him. Mark turned around in the driver's seat to talk with Jessie.

"You know, it's a funny thing that the girl's name should be Bertha Blair," the young man said. "I heard you folks talking about her before, and I said something about it to our Mr. Blair at the factory.

He's had a lot of trouble in his family. Never had any children, he and his wife, but always wanted 'em."

"His younger brother married a girl of whom the Blair family did not approve. Guess she was all right, but came from poor kind of folks.

And when the younger Blair died they lost trace of his wife and a baby girl they had. Funny thing," added Mark. "That baby's name was Bertha--Bertha Blair. When I told the superintendent something about your looking for such a girl because of a law case, he was much interested. If you go over there again to the sending station, tell the superintendent all about her, Miss Jessie."

"I certainly will," promised the Roselawn girl. "But we haven't even found Bertha yet, and we are not sure she is here."

Darry and the others had entered the grounds surrounding the stock farm buildings and they were gone some time. When they came back even Amy seemed despondent.

"I guess we were fooled, Jess," she said. "There is n.o.body here--not even a caretaker. I guess what we heard over the radio that time was a hoax."

"I don't believe it!" declared Jessie. "I just _feel_ that Bertha Blair, little Henrietta's cousin, is somewhere here."